Bill It To The L-G, Please

Since assuming the role of the nat­ional capital territory라이브 바카라 top executive in 2015, Kejriwal had routinely argued that Delhi라이브 바카라 Lieutenant Governor—nominated by the Centre—prevented his government from performing its day-to-day duties citing ambiguities in the Constitution over the separation of powers between the NCT라이브 바카라 elected head and nominated administrator. Following a three-year-long legal battle, the unanimous apex court judgment had finally brought clarity over the constitutional mandate of Delhi라이브 바카라 Executive, its elected representatives and the L-G. Indeed, the main judgment authored by then Chief Justice Dipak Misra and two concurring judgments authored by Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan had also warned the L-G against being an “obstructionist”.

The BJP-led central government now appears determined to turn the Supreme Court라이브 바카라 verdict on its head through the Government of NCT of Delhi (Amendment) Bill, 2021. The Bill, passed by the Lok Sabha on March 22 and the Rajya Sabha on March 24, bestows wide-ranging ­executive powers on Delhi라이브 바카라 L-G; the nominated administrator will be equivalent to the government of Delhi. The legislation라이브 바카라 critics say it emasculates the constitutional ­mandate of Delhi라이브 바카라 70-member ­legislature and renders the elected representatives with ­practically no power to legislate laws, policies and schemes, while also being “blatantly unconstitutional for ­demolishing the basic structure doctrine on the ­principle of federalism”.

Predictably, Kejriwal and his AAP colleagues are furious and are agitating against the “BJP라이브 바카라 attempt at back-door entry to power”. The Congress is peeved too, as are outfits from Jammu and Kashmir—the National Conference and People라이브 바카라 Democratic Party—which saw their political lives halt abruptly when the Centre, in August 2019, abrogated Article 370 and simultaneously sliced the state into two Union ­territories—J&K, with an elected ­assembly, and centrally administered Ladakh. The BJP, of course, has ­dismissed all criticism as ­“unfounded”, saying the bill will end all ambiguity and confusion.

Senior advocate Rahul Mehra, standing counsel for AAP라이브 바카라 Delhi ­government, tells 바카라, “The bill is unconstitutional, unethical, immoral and in complete contravention of the SC judgment, which had upheld the supremacy of the elected government in legislating and administering on all matters, except those of land, public order and the police, which were under control of the central government and so, tangentially governed through the L-G as the Centre라이브 바카라 nominee.” Mehra says the only “real ambiguity” over separation of powers between the government and the L-G was on the issue of whether the elected government must mandatorily seek the administrator라이브 바카라 opinion on matters that aren’t listed in the ­excepted category. He says the only unresolved issue in Delhi is on who should control services (the bureaucracy) and this is presently sub judice as the Delhi government had sought clarification from the apex court on this limited aspect of the 2018 verdict.

P.D.T. Achary, a former secretary general of the Lok Sabha, sums up the proposed changes in Delhi라이브 바카라 power arithmetic thus: “Firstly, the ­amendment will effectively forbid the Delhi assembly from making rules to enable itself or its committees to ­consider matters of day-to-day ­administration. Secondly, it recognises the L-G as the government, which means the person holding this office will be under no ­obligation to implement any law passed by the ­assembly or to heed the aid and advice of the council of ­ministers. And lastly, it will render the elected government non-functional because the L-G라이브 바카라 opinion on every matter will not just be mandatory, but also binding.”

Faizan Mustafa, vice chancellor of Hyderabad라이브 바카라 NALSAR University of Law, says that “forget prima facie, the bill is ex facie unconstitutional as it is in clear violation of the basic ­structure doctrine and makes a ­mockery of electoral democracy”. “By making it incumbent on the Delhi government to take the L-G라이브 바카라 opinion before taking any executive decision, the bill virtually robs the elected ­government of its constitutional ­mandate; under such a scheme, there is actually no need to have an ­assembly in Delhi anymore,” he says.

While canvassing the legal ­anomalies in the bill, which, he says, “doesn’t even make an attempt to ­appear constitutional”, Mustafa also maintains that the Delhi chief minister라이브 바카라 opposition to the dilution of his government라이브 바카라 powers is, perhaps, “on shaky ground” because of his strong public support for the Centre라이브 바카라 ­decision to downgrade J&K라이브 바카라 full statehood. For Kejriwal and his ­colleagues, the J&K analogy will be hard to brush aside.

“There is no denying that the Centre라이브 바카라 bill is unconstitutional and we must all fight against it, but Kejriwal is only shedding crocodile tears,” says Delhi Congress president Anil Chaudhary. “He supported the BJP on Kashmir and now that the BJP is doing the same thing to him, he라이브 바카라 crying ‘murder of democracy’.… His hypocrisy has been completely ­exposed.” Chaudhary alleges a “fixed match between AAP and BJP” over the bill and said it was passed by the Union cabinet 50 days back, but Kejriwal didn’t react then. 바카라 웹사이트

The unease of AAP leaders in ­countering charges over the party라이브 바카라 stand on the bifurcation and ­simultaneous downgrading of J&K라이브 바카라 ­statehood is ­evident. “These are two completely different issues,” AAP MLA Atishi tells 바카라. “Kashmir had its own peculiarities because of its internal security and cross-border terrorism issues…. There is no such thing in Delhi; the situation in Kashmir may have created some ­hindrances for the Centre because of the state라이브 바카라 own problems, but the elected government of Delhi is not a hindrance to the Centre in any way because issues like police and public order, both admittedly unique to the national capital, are already under central jurisdiction.”

Atishi also ­argues that since the ­legislative ­assembly in Delhi was set up through the 69th constitutional amendment, any move to alter the amendment라이브 바카라 provisions “must also have been done through a constitutional amendment, not a regular ­legislation”. The MLA ­alleges the bill is only a means to “punish AAP and the people of Delhi for defeating the BJP in ­successive elections”.

Now that the Rajya Sabha too has passed the bill, another legal battle in the Supreme Court is the obvious ­recourse for the AAP government, says Mustafa. However, he ­cautions that in such an eventuality “the people of Delhi will be the losers once again ­because the legal battle on a matter of constitutional interpretation will be a long-drawn one and, in the meanwhile, governance in Delhi will suffer because of the tug-of-war ­between the elected government and the nominated head.”